Express-Scripts plans $56 million expansion and 1,500 new jobs over five years

St. Louis is headed to the top ten in college attainment.

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A pillar of our economic development strategy is that, “We will win on today’s regional strengths in focused economic clusters. Explore in detail the four sectors that we believe will shape our region’s future.

“The Banker” … from Central Park West to Washington Avenue

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We’ve condensed a detailed three-year plan into a single paragraph we call our Strategy Statement. It’s all about priorities and direction.

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Our research team has probably answered almost any question that could be asked regarding the St. Louis region. If you can't find it in our Regional Data section, please send a note to Tim Alexander at talexander@stlregionalchamber.com.

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Inner City Capital Connections Program has come to St. Louis. To date, this program has helped 837 different businesses raise over $1.32 billion in capital and create over 11,000 jobs in the inner city. Read more about the program on our blog.

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We believe nothing is more important in St. Louis than achieving Top 10 status in college attainment among the nation's largest metros. Visit www.topteneducation.org to follow our progress.

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If your company represents growth potential for the region -- or you know of other companies that do -- we'd be pleased to help however we can. Please contact Jim Alexander at jalexander@stlregionalchamber.com

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St. Louis is home to 16 Fortune 1000 companies and some of the largest private firms in the U.S.; but don't overlook the ever increasing number of high growth small-to-medium enterprises and startups. Click here for a quick summary.

Recent years have seen a high volume of U.S. corporate mergers and acquisitions. St. Louis area headquarters have been active acquirers growing through many significant acquisitions. In 2017, St. Louis companies acquired almost $20 billion worth of major companies across industries including health care, manufacturing, and technology.

Most notably, Centene, Express Scripts, and Emerson each made acquisitions worth over $3 Billion. Other major acquisitions were spearheaded by Quinpario, Post Holdings, and Mallinckrodt. The following list details some of the largest company acquisitions in 2017 by St. Louis headquarters.

MAJOR ACQUISITIONS BY ST LOUIS COMPANIES 2017

St. Louis Company HQ

Acquired Company

Acquisition Price

Acquisition Date

Centene

Fidelis Care

$3.75 Billion

September 12, 2017

Express Scripts

eviCore healthcare

$3.60 Billion

October 10, 2017

Emerson

Pentair

$3.15 Billion

May 1, 2017

Quinpario Acquisition Corporation

SourceHOV LLC & Novitex Holdings Inc.

$2.80 Billion

July 10, 2017

Post Holdings

Weetabix

$1.80 Billion

July 3, 2017

Post Holdings

Bob Evans

$1.50 Billion

September 19, 2017

Mallinckrodt

Sucampo

$1.20 Billion

December 26, 2017

Emerson

Paradigm

$510 Million

December 4, 2017

Express Scripts

myMatrixx

$250 Million

May 2017

Belden

Thinklogical

$160 Million

May 2017

Sources: St. Louis Business Journal and St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

These acquisitions were dwarfed by Emerson’s ultimately unsuccessful $29 billion bid to acquire Rockwell Automation, an industrial automation provider.(1) Emerson quickly pivoted to a buy back of their own shares and two smaller acquisitions, Paradigm for $510 million and Cooper-Atkins for an undisclosed sum.(2)

St. Louis has long been an attractive location for the headquarters of some of the world’s largest and most innovative companies. Recent major acquisitions demonstrate the continuing strength and growth of the St. Louis headquarters market.

A new report released by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis provides further details on a new way to measure standards of living, termed Regional Price Parities (RPP). RPPs compare price level differences, and thus cost of living between states or metro areas.

St. Louis enjoys a significantly lower cost of living compared to U.S. averages, especially for an area its size. Cost of living indexes provide information about quality of life and general living standards. These indexes are useful for measuring how much an individual can consume. The most well-known cost of living index is the ACCRA Cost of Living Index (COLI) produced by the Council for Community and Economic Research. The COLI measures the relative cost of U.S. metropolitan areas. The following table includes cost index components for the St. Louis, MO-IL metro area.

Cost of Living – St. Louis, MO-IL MSA, 2016 Average

Metro Area

100% Composite Index

Grocery Items

Housing

Utilities

Transportation

Health Care

Misc. Goods and Services

St. Louis

90.4

103.2

70.5

112.8

94.2

96.3

92.9

Note: U.S. metro average cost of living = 100.
Source: “ACCRA Cost of Living Index, 2016 Average Annual Data” Council for Community and Economic Research, Jan. 2017.

Regional Price Parities are spatial price indexes used to compare costs across different areas, like the ACCRA Cost of Living Index. However, the RPP is better suited to adjusting income for cost of living.

In 2015, Missouri’s RPP was 89.3, more than ten percent below the national average of 100. The St. Louis region has an RPP of 90.6, considerably below the national average.

Standards of living can also be measured by per capita personal income. In 2015, the Bureau of Economic Analysis ranked metro areas according to per capita personal income. The region’s per capita personal income in chained 2009 dollars was $44,715 and ranked 67th out of all U.S. metro areas in 2015. However, when adjusted for RPPs, the region’s per capita personal income increased to $49,598, ranking 20th. “On an RPP-adjusted basis, per capita personal income in St. Louis jumped from 1.6 percent above the national average to 12.7 percent above the national average” (1). An article on the report by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis stated, “St. Louis has the seventh highest standard of living among 53 U.S. metro areas with populations of more than 1 million” (2).